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Managing a virtual team can be a daunting task for some entrepreneurs and business owners. However, the benefits a team of Virtual Assistants (VAs) bring to your business can be enormous, so it is worth taking the time to work out how best to hire and how best to manage your VAs.

Tip 1: Know their valuesKnowing your teams values, whether virtual or physical, is a must in order to manage your team effectively. If your VAs highest value is their family, and that is why they became a VA to work from home and spend more time with their family, then you know bonuses of additional time off or financial bonuses to help support their family will motivate them. If your VAs highest value is money, then you know they will appreciate financial bonuses, if it is learning & development then they will appreciate the opportunity to grow in their role and attend courses.

Take the time as soon as you hire your VA or team member to find out their top 3 values so you can motivate and reward them to become the best & most loyal team member for your business.

Tip 2: Trust Trusting your new VA can be hard. A lot of business owners fear that due to the distance and not being able to see them work physically in an office, they may not work the hours required for their role. This can easily be managed using software such as Harvest or Timeproof alongside a task management software such as Asana.

Trust in any relationship is earned, and trust in a working relationship is no different. Give your VA more basic tasks first in order to test them before gradually moving to sensitive or tasks with more responsibility (such as online banking).

Tip 3: Feedback Feedback works both ways in managing your team. You should be feeding back to your VAs exactly how they are performing in their role. To do this effectively you need to have relevant KPIs set-up from the start that can be tracked and monitored.

Asking your VAs how they feel they are doing in their job and for their own feedback on their role and tasks are important regular questions to ask (at least quarterly). This can lead to improved performance, improved business processes and highlight any blockages that are stopping progress and any training and development needs they have.

In summary, treat your virtual team just as you would like to be treated. Get to know the, trust in their ability to get the job done, check in with their progress and results and get their feedback to see how you can improve as a manager to improve them as a vital member of your team.

To find out more on how to hire your perfect virtual team, see theviva.club

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.ukand follow us on social media.

​Thanks, Turner InvestEmpowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams​

Most of our Tuesday Tips have focussed on entrepreneurs who are already running a business, but what if you are just starting out?

​For those looking to start a business from scratch, here are our top 3 tips to get you on your way. And for those who have already started, keep these in mind to stay on track:“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – C. S. LewisTip 1: Learn to monetise something you feel passionate about Creating a business around something you are passionate about will keep you driven and motivated to keep going when times are tough. It will give you the energy and passion to sell the services or products you plan to sell, knowing they are of high value to people as they are of high value to you.

Building a business around your passion will mean you will not settle for mediocre or second best and your customers and clients will love you for it and keep returning and referring!Tip 2: Understand your values & enjoy the journeyBy knowing what your values are and living to them, you are more likely to enjoy what you do and why you are doing it. Your values and their order of priority are unique to you, so invest time in working out what these are for you and ensure you keep working in line with them.

Also, don’t just reward yourself at the end… because there is no real end when you own a business - you’ll find there is always a new goal. So treat yourself along the way and enjoy the journey.Tip 3: Take opportunities... a leap of faithTo get something different, you have to do something different. Most of us our stuck in a comfort zone and it’s only when something becomes a bit painful that we start to look for something different - a way out. Start to reach outside your comfort zone now and take the opportunities in front of you.

For example, one of the first for us was saying yes to investing in our business education (something we had never done before). At the time it was a leap of faith, now we know it was one of the best investments we ever made.

When it comes to formulating , planning & running your business, there will be a lot more things to consider. However, staying true to the above three tips will allow you to keep pushing for what you want to achieve and what you know is out there waiting for you.

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.Thanks,

Since the launch of The VIVA Club, we have had a number of frequently asked questions from business owners and entrepreneurs looking to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA). Here is the top 5 questions asked to help you on your way to hiring a VA, and start getting your time back.

1. What tasks can a VA do? Virtual Assistants are able to complete many tasks for you, whether business or personal, as long as the task is online they will be able to complete it. Some example tasks include:

Social media management

Build relationships with suppliers

Manage Amazon inventory

Complete the Amazon seller checklist weekly

End of day reports

End of week reports

Develop process guides

Gain Product reviews

Customer Service

Complete Amazon training

Business improvement

Packaging design

Build/manage websites

Improve SEO

CRM

Manage databases

List properties

Product/Property/Market research

Property Management

Research for new business/sales

Manage you virtual team

Bookkeeping

Content creation

And many more

2. Do I have to hire someone full time? You do not have to hire a full time Virtual Assistant. A lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs struggle at first to think of enough tasks to fill a 40 hour week for a Virtual Assistant (although as soon as they get their first VA and realise how much they can do, they soon start to require more hours!).

However, if part-time or project based is what you require there are a few options available:

Get one off work, project based work completed from sites such as fiverr.com and upwork.com

Use your VA on personal tasks as well, such as research, booking tickets, making reservations, processing orders etc

Combine with another business owner and share your VAs time (use The VIVA Club community if you do not already know someone)

3. How much does a VA cost? The pay of your VA will depend on the skills and experience they have, and location. The VIVA Club focuses on Filipino VAs.

A starting VA with no prior experience, to hire full-time for 40 hours a week can cost as little as 10000PHP per month which equates to about £150 per month. However we would suggest only paying this amount during their probation period and increasing their pay once they have proven themselves.

The average salary for a Filipino VA is 18000PHP per month which is about £265 or £1.57 per hour

For specialists or higher skilled/experienced VAs, such as SEO experts, bookkeepers, full social media management, website development and management etc, you should expect to pay a higher rate of 30000PHP to 40000PHP and higher, which equates to £440 to £590 per month, or £2.61 to £3.51 per hour.

Note, that it is custom to pay a 13thMonth bonus in December so the annual salary for a VA is 13 times the monthly amounts shown above.

4. I am initially looking to use a VA for sourcing properties on Rightmove. Is this something that other VAs have done previously? You will be surprised at the broad range of roles VAs have worked in and as long as you are specific in your search criteria and job description, you should find someone who has had that experience or similar, or has been trained in that kind of task.

The VIVA Club provides the VAs access to training that is compiled from a number of working process documents from the our various companies and experience. This allows VAs to train themselves for potential roles and ensure they are able to add value to businesses straight away.

In addition, within Life Leverage Online Masterclass, we teach the very simple methods of how to task your VAs with any online task, no matter how complicated. To check out the Masterclass, which comes with a bonus of free access to The VIVA Club, visit .

5. What is The VIVA Club? The VIVA Club is The Very Important Virtual Assistant Club.We named it VIVA as we know how important the right team is for the success of a business and having hired Virtual Assistants for over 5 years across 3 different businesses and personally, we know how Very Important they are.

The VIVA Club is a private community of Filipino Virtual Assistants looking for work, sharing tips and advice, helping each other and receiving training.

Accessing The VIVA Club as an individual or business owner allows you to advertise your role to our 1500+ members in our easy to follow process, allowing you to find your perfect VA.

​Entrepreneurs and business owners share a common trait, time, and on the road to success we could all do with more of it. With too much to do and not enough time to do it in, tasks get dropped and the time sensitive tasks get done before the important or strategic tasks, giving you the feeling that you are working hard but not progressing fast enough.

The solution to this is for you to work on your high value, important tasks and work ‘on your business’ and to delegate all of the lower value tasks, i.e. working ‘in your business’.

The most cost effective way of delegating your low value tasks, the administrative internet-based tasks, is to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA). By doing this you can get your administrative tasks up to date and achieve more internet research and traffic to your website.

Hiring a Virtual Assistant is something a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners are doing in order to get the help they need to scale, at an affordable price. The following are our top three tips when it comes to hiring your VA.

“Do what you do best, and outsource the rest” – Peter Drucker

Tip 1: Improve your Business To-Do ListFirst things first, you need to know what you are currently doing, should be doing and want to be doing so you can prioritise and categorise. Monitor your weekly tasks and to-do list (to capture all you are doing and what you should be doing), write them down and categorise between:

Do - Must do/high value tasks for the success of your business. These are the tasks that are of high importance to the business and not necessarily the urgent tasks.

Manage - These are the tasks that could be done by someone else with management oversight.

Leverage -These are the low value tasks that you can give to your VA or completely outsource.

Tip 2: Create a detailed Job DescriptionCreate a detailed job description, based on the Leverage and Manage tasks, that allows your new VA to get straight to work, increasing business productivity and freeing up your time. Remember to include KPIs to measure your VAs performance against and link to as many business process documents and training videos as possible. You can also summarise job description to create an inviting job advert to attract the best applicants.

Tip 3: Systemise ApplicationsIn order to save you time in the hiring process, aim to systemise as much of the application process as possible. Use tools such as Google Suite to create automatic email replies and Google forms for applicants to complete. Then export applicants answers into a Google sheet for easy review and shortlisting. Set up times for interviews via Skype, let your VAs book the times and then conduct your interviews on your pre-prepared question set.

The key to hiring successful Virtual Assistants all comes in the prep work. You need to invest time in creating detailed process documents, job descriptions and procedures in order for the right people to apply for the role and for them to get straight in to the job.

For a more detailed process of hiring Virtual Assistants including all the template documents you need, check out The VIVA Club at bit.ly/thevivaclub

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.

Thanks, Turner InvestEmpowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

Article written for and published in the July Mensa Business Newsletter

Business systemisation is the process of analysing your business, standardising processes, creating operating procedures and then following them. This article outlines the benefits of systemisation and the simple 5-step process to get you started.

Why systemise your business or role?

Systemisation can create tangible benefits for a wide range of people in business.

Information systems - IT processes that pull data about the business and its operations together to allow for comparison and selection of best practices

To keep this general for all types of business I will focus on the soft systems.

The other two types will depend on your specific trade. Some of these I have already experienced in the businesses that I own and run and some we are still aiming towards. Hopefully, you will resonate with some of them.

Efficiencies

Standardising procedures and processes creates efficiencies in both time and money.

When I worked in a corporate role, I systemised a lot of my role simply by linking spreadsheets directly with the accounting system and other reports from managers. This freed up time to focus on improving other processes that I was managing to keep ahead.

In our property business, we have turned 3-bed houses into 5-bed multi-let houses. The first time we did this we recorded the exact specification we required, who we used, where we purchased all of the furnishings and the costs involved. Now the process document for this has made all conversions since and all future conversions simpler. We are able to estimate refurbishment costs quickly and accurately. We can go straight to our list of trusted suppliers to get the work started. More importantly, we were able to deliver the same standard for our investors again and again. By creating a reliable experience for our customers, trust is gained. Repeat business is beneficial to both us and our customer.

Scaling up

Having systems in place means you are ready and able to scale your business and grow. Not only will it streamline existing processes but taking on new/more staff will be easier.

For example, in our e-commerce business, we needed to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) so we could continue to grow. At the beginning of our e-commerce business journey, I detailed a full procedure document that had the step-by-step processes needed to launch new products. However, we did not have the time ourselves to action all of the steps and we therefore looked to hire.

Having a detailed process in place enabled our new VA to produce valuable output from the very beginning. To take this to the next level, I then systemised the process of hiring a VA. So when it came to hiring one for our property business the process was mostly automated and quick to action.

The added benefit of staffing/outsourcing your systemised processes means it frees up more of your time to start working ON the business rather than IN the business. If you are working in a corporate role, think about how systemisation could benefit your company. Put together a plan and show the benefits, savings and/or improved sales it will create. Even better, look to systemise your own role and either use the free time for yourself (if you are able to) or create more value for your employer to gain promotion. If you are looking for a change, systemise your- self out of the business and say that the savings made by putting these systems and processes in place will pay for your redundancy package and a lot more!

Saleability

Whether you want to ultimately sell your business, franchise it or grow in other areas, systemising will greatly increase its value. If your business can run without you, its attraction for investors or aspiring franchise clients is significantly increased. They do not want a business that is going to take them 60 hours a week to grow, nor a business that relies on the owner’s relationships with clients. Another added benefit of setting your business up to sell (even if you are not looking to do so yet) is that the systems and processes in place will allow you to detach from the day-to-day running of the business. This would reduce your hours and create a more passive income.

Systemising your business or role is not a quick task. You will need to take time away from the direct profit- making activities. But don’t let this short-term loss stop you from gaining the longer-term benefit.

Five-Step Process for Business Systemisation

1.Document Document exactly what you do each day. If you have staff, get them to do the same. Wherever possible, record your actions - whether it is an intricate piece of brickwork or an elongated process on the computer, recording the process will help new and existing staff complete the task.

2. Analyse Once you have documented your business processes, analyse them and see whether there are any efficiencies to be made. You may find staff repeating processes or doing the same thing in different ways, or orders for supplies being ordered from different suppliers with varying costs and quality. Until you have all your processes written down and can view your business holistically, it is hard to see improvement areas (especially if you are caught up in the day-to-day running of the business).

3. Record As well as processes, you should analyse data. If you are not recording data yet, start as soon as you can. Without data, you will not know what areas of your business are most profitable, which clients are most profitable and which strategies result in the most sales etc. Recording and analysing this data will help you improve your processes along with knowing which no/low-profit areas and clients to drop and which ones to focus on.

4. Manage With a systemised structure in place, it is now time to manage. Each process should be looked at individually with the view to either leverage, manage or do. Low-value tasks that are time-intensive may be outsourced. A company that specialises in the task will have their own efficiencies making the task cheaper. For those tasks that you cannot leverage outlook to manage them.

With clear documented processes, new staff should be able to complete these tasks with little to no input from yourself. These tasks should also be tied into their job description along with Key Responsibility Areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). You can then effectively manage them and monitor their progress against the job they should be doing. Finally, those tasks that you can not leverage or manage out, you should do yourself. These should either be tasks you enjoy doing or those that are key to the business that you cannot delegate.

5. Improve The final and ongoing stage to systemising your business is to embed an improvement culture into your business. Every member of your team that is following your operating system and processes should look to reduce time and cost, improve efficiency and grow sales. Staff will feel more valued as they can individually suggest improvements to their work and see them implemented. So your business will advance and grow from not only improved processes but more energised staff.

Risk vs Reward

Systemising your business or role is not a quick task. You will need to take time away from the direct profit-making activities of your business. But don’t let this short-term loss stop you from the longer-term benefit. Without systemising your business, you may get stuck working IN the business rather than ON the business. Working on monotonous tasks could stunt your career or business growth, make you miss big opportunities and render you less able to react to change.

If you are running a business, you may also fear a member of your staff taking your entire business’ operating procedures and setting up in competition with you. To counter this risk, it is best not to have one master operating procedure for your entire business. Instead, have a framework document which refers to different annexes, checklists and processes. Staff will only be able to access the documents relevant to their work. Those who gain trust and grow with your company can view more of the operating procedures, but maybe still not the entire manual. This will depend on who you hire and the type of business you are in.

When is the best time to systemise your business or role? If you have not done so already, NOW! The sooner you begin the easier it will be. There will be some upfront increased effort and time spent on doing this work - but you will start seeing the benefits sooner. This is time invested that will continue to pay you back in the long run.

Recommended books If you would like some further reading on this subject, I recommend:

Work the System by Sam Carpenter

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber

Built to Sell by John Warrillow

Alternatively, if you have any questions, would like to know about the training we offer to businesses and business owners to help them leverage or would just like to get in touch, please check out the Turner Invest website and contact us.

Stephen TurnerTurner InvestEmpowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams